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HONKY TONK - ONE OF THE ROCK AND ROLL ERA'S BIGGEST INSTRUMENTAL HITS.

Bob Bell

Updated: Oct 25, 2024




(Published in USA Today in July, 2016)


Sixty years ago this month Syd Nathan's King Records released a two-sided instrumental record by Bill Doggett. Nathan was leery of releasing a two-sided disc as he considered it would hurt jukebox plays.


Oh boy,was he wrong!


"Honky Tonk Parts 1 &2' not only became one of the biggest hits of 1956, it went on to sell by the million, and according to  Big Al Pavlow's 'The  R&B  Book' -the definitive story of the  R&B music business - it became the second biggest R &B record of the decade.






The  tune, recorded in June of 1956, rose to number one on the R&B  charts and stayed there for two months. It  hit  number  two  on  the  pop  charts, sold  over four million copies  -

probably many more by now- and became one of the most covered tunes of the era, spawning several dozen versions by artists as varied as The Beach Boys to Bill Haley, from Bill Black to    Ray Anthony, the Ventures to Jerry  McCain. The  Doggett version, recorded on the fly in

supposedly one take, outstrips them all in sheer verve, feeling and groove.


I really can't recall when it was that I first became aware of Bill Doggett while growing up in the UK. Probably at a party, or lying under the bedclothes at night listening to Radio Luxemburg,

trying to hear past the static, mad beeps and yowls of my old Philips tube radio. His  King

records were issued on Parlophone over there, a very old label that was part of the EMI empire. Most people today probably remember it as the  Beatles label. I do recall the first Doggett tune

that I  owned. It was 'High  Heels ' and was track  three on side two of a marvelous  King Records compilation  'All-Star  Rock  and  Roll  Revue' (King  LP  395-513). This  was  the  first American-pressed  LP  I ever owned. Around 1959 or 1960 a friend and I would regularly  cycle the twelve miles from our hometown of  Winchester to  Southampton, a busy port on the southern coast. Our destination would be the St. Mary's district, which was where all the junk  stores were located. There was all manner of delights to be savored there amongst the  mothballed piles of clothes, dusty crockery, busted toasters and old bicycles.




Records! 78s,45s and LPs. And every now and then an American one! We surmised that homecoming sailors plying the  Atlantic route between Southampton and New York brought these records back from the States, and in true and proper sailor tradition, sold them for booze money. So that is where I found the LP - other  great  cuts  on   it

were things by  Lucky Millinder with Wynonie Harris, The   Midnighters, Earl  Bostic, Little  Willie John, The Swallows and others.


As Jon Hartley Fox tells the story in  'King  of  the  Queen  City  - The  Story  of  King  Records',

"Honky  Tonk' came about on a gig when in between tunes, guitarist  Billy Butler played a figure that the rest of the band fell in behind. In another story, Shep Shepherd told Rusty Zinn that

Doggett was late for the recording session and the band worked it up while waiting for him. Whichever tale is the true one, all four had their names on the tune as co-composers, and as  Shepherd related to  Rusty:''I'm still living in the house that 'Honky  Tonk' bought'.





A  medium rocking shuffle propelled by Doggett's insistently pulsing organ and drummer Shep Shepherd's in-the-pocket beat, the tune became a showcase for  Butler's gently stinging guitar and  Clifford  Scott's iconic tenor playing. On the record, the players can be heard shouting

encouragement as the excitement builds. Interestingly, in the very democratic musical milieu of the times, Doggett doesn't take a solo. Solo-wise, the record is split between Butler and Scott,   but the result was a hundred percent team effort. If one had to choose just one recording that truly characterized the term  'Rhythm and Blues' it would be this record.


It is simply a blues record with impeccable rhythm.


Try not to dance to it.

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